Indiana got their first intimate look at Greg Oden and Mike Conley on Tuesday night. And it’s safe to say the Hoosier state again finds itself in mourning.

As a towel-waving sold-out Schottenstein Center crowd worked itself into a rare frenzy over No. 6 Ohio State’s 74-67 win against Indiana in the Big Ten opener, it wasn’t hard to imagine hearing the somber wails of a basketball-mad state still grieving the flight of it’s two most celebrated high school players.

Oden, perhaps the conference’s most dominating player, finished with 21 points, 4 blocks and single-handedly shut down IU’s star forward D.J. White, the pre-season all-Big Ten selection had just 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting. This came even as foul trouble forced the 7-footer to sit for much of the second half.

“When I see Oden, I don’t see a great scorer, I just see a great player. He’s a lot more like Bill Russell than Shaq,”first-year IU coach Kelvin Sampson said.

Oden’s high school buddy Conley was just as impressive. Slashing through the IU defense at will, the conference’s assist leader handed out 10 Tuesday, didn’t once turn the ball over, had three steals and keyed the Buckeyes rally from a late 55-54 deficit.

“I’ve got great faith in him,” said OSU coach Thad Matta.

“The Conley kid, even when their offense breaks down, he’s an offense unto himself,” said Sampson. “He’s really good with the dribble and he’s got a high basketball IQ.”

It was a welcome presence as the Buckeyes found themselves in the unusual position of a meaningful stretch run.

Not that such a grinding, physical affair couldn’t be expected with the birth of Big Ten play. As Matta said before the game, “From here on in, it’s on.”

“Coach told us we’re not going to have an easy game from here out in the Big Ten,” Conley said.

It certainly wasn’t Tuesday. Shoddy perimeter defense allowed Indiana to stay in the game throughout and they were 12-for-22 on three point shots.

It made for a shaky situation as the Buckeyes found themselves trailing 47-43 with 12:08 left and 55-54 with 7:06 left. But led by Oden, Cook and junior forward Othello Hunter, who finished with 14 points, the Buckeyes answered every IU run.

“Guys stepped up, they hit big shots,” Matta said. “That was probably the biggest difference.”

It was a nice warm-up to the conference slate, but the schedule gets decidedly harder during the next two weeks as the Buckeyes visit Illinois on Saturday and No. 4 Wisconsin on Tuesday before returning home the following weekend to host No. 19 Tennessee.

“The real test is on the road,” guard Ron Lewis said.

Still, Indiana was no pushover. Under first-year coach Kelvin Sampson, who is coming off nine straight 20-plus win seasons at Oklahoma, the Hoosiers (9-4, 0-1 Big Ten) project to finish in the top half of the conference. Their three losses came by a combined 13 points against 13th-ranked Butler and at No. 5 Duke and Kentucky.

The story, though, was what Indiana couldn’t do in putting a fence around the state and keeping Oden and Conley near home. After the touted pair led Lawrence North High School to three Indiana state championships, most thought Oden and Conley would make the 60-mile trip south to tradition-rich Indiana.

But thanks to Matta’s relentless pitch, they didn’t. And Indiana – and its fans, who greeted the pair with a smattering off boos last month when OSU played Cincinnati in Indianapolis – can only wonder what could have been.

Would it be them at the top of the polls and OSU in the middle of the Big Ten pack had Oden and Conley headed to Bloomington?

These are questions best left to the fans, however. Though both players admitted to being slightly nervous heading into this game, it hardly showed. And when it was over, the pair could finally rejoice.

“Not just because it was Indiana, it was our first Big Ten game,” Conley said. “It was really exciting, definitely.”